I-580 express lanes take lead in toll revenue

1of 2The toll revenue from the I-880-Hwy.237 express lanes pales in comparison with that collected from the I-580 lanes.Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle

2of 2Morning commuters driving north pass a sign for an express lane on the Interstate 880-Highway 237 interchange in Milpitas. The lanes in the corridor carry about 3 million vehicles a year.Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle

As express lanes reach deeper into the Bay Area, electronically snatching tolls from a growing number of solo drivers willing to pay for the convenience of riding in the carpool lanes, one set stands out as a big moneymaker.

The Interstate 580 express lanes, which cover 11 miles eastbound and 14 miles westbound between Dublin and Livermore, have been open a little less than two years. But they’ve already become the regional leader, earning more money and luring in more solo drivers than the other two established express lanes combined.

In their first full year, the I-580 lanes produced more than $9 million in net revenue from tolls. By comparison, the Interstate 880-Highway 237 express lanes recorded $405,000 in net revenue, and the Interstate 680 express lanes over the Sunol Grade earned $290,000. The I-680 Contra Costa lanes, which opened in October, were too new for meaningful figures.

The I-580 lanes carried 7.9 million vehicles — about 31,000 per weekday — in the 12 months that ended in October. The other two express lanes were used by about 3 million vehicles a year apiece.

Officials point to I-580’s consistent, and persistent, congestion as a probable reason for those express lanes’ popularity. Compared with the Bay Area’s other established express lanes, the I-580 lanes attract far more solo drivers and fewer carpoolers and clean air vehicles, which travel for free. About 66 percent of the drivers using them are solo occupants, while 27 percent using the I-680 Sunol lanes and 15 percent using the I-880-Highway 237 lanes are driving solo.

Many of the Bay Area-bound motorists on I-580 drive long commutes to and from the San Joaquin Valley and may be more willing to pay a fee to bust through the backup through the Tri-Valley. For some commuters, the ability to shorten an hour-and-a-half commute by 15 minutes can be enticing enough for them to fork over a couple of bucks to drive the express lanes.

“The 580 lanes are more successful because the (congestion) problem was bigger,” said Randy Rentschler, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. “If you drove there before the lanes opened, you know there’s a difference.”

The biggest difference comes in the eastbound direction, which features two lanes that speed the evening commute. The westbound lane on I-580 offers just a single lane, as do the express lanes on I-680 and I-880-Highway 237.

Morning commuters drive past a sign for an express lane on the Interstate 880-Highway 237 interchange in Milpitas. In their first full year, the 580 lanes produced more than $9 million in net revenue from tolls. By comparison, the Interstate 880-Highway 237 express lanes recorded $405,000 in net revenue.

Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle

With the opening of the I-680 Contra Costa express lanes between Walnut Creek and San Ramon, the Bay Area now has four sets of them. The combined carpool-toll lanes allow vehicles carrying two or more people, or qualifying as clean-air vehicles, to enter free while vehicles carrying only a driver must pay a varying toll, based on congestion, to enter.

They are separate from each other, operated by three different agencies and fairly far-flung, creating a disjointed system for now. Each agency has been given authority to use the tolls, collected via FasTrak, for the operation and maintenance of their lanes. But they can also use the money to expand their express lanes, with an eye toward helping the Bay Area assemble a 550-mile regional express lane network by 2035.

The money may also be used to operate express buses that can use the lanes, or help pay for BART or other rail extensions that could take traffic off those highways.

“The idea is not primarily to make money,” Rentschler said.

So far, little money has been set aside for I-580 express lane maintenance.

Tess Lengyel, the commission’s deputy executive director of planning and policy for the Alameda County Transportation Commission, said that’s because the lanes, at less than 2-years old, are still relatively new. But that won’t always be the case, and the commission plans to set aside some of the $9 million to cover future maintenance needs.

For now, Lengyel said, there are no plans to spend that money on express-lane expansion.

Transportation officials say they had few initial goals or expectations of how much money they’d collect or how many cars they’d attract when they initiated the lanes.

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“The goal (for I-580) was that we wanted to improve the capacity of the corridor by selling” unused space in the carpool lanes, Lengyel said.

John Goodwin, an MTC spokesman, said that when lanes are created, it is difficult to determine what will drive commuters to decide it’s worthwhile to pull into the express lane and pay a toll.

“It’s all a guess until the lanes are open, they stabilize and you see what the patterns are,” he said.

State legislation directs express lane operators how to spend the tolls they collect. They must be used first to pay for upkeep of the electronic toll collection gear, updating the software that calculates congestion and sets tolls, plugging potholes and hiring extra CHP officers to ticket toll violators.

“Any freeway has maintenance, but on express lanes we have operations as well,” Lengyel said. “There are lot of costs I don’t think people think of.”

Michael Cabanatuan has covered all things transportation for the San Francisco Chronicle — from BART strikes, acrobatic bridge construction and dark dirty tunnel excavations to the surging ridership on public transportation and the increasing conflict as cars, bikes and pedestrians struggle to coexist on the streets. He’s ridden high-speed trains in Japan, walked in BART’s Transbay Tube and driven to King City at 55 mph to test fuel efficiency.

He joined The Chronicle as a suburban reporter and deputy bureau chief in Contra Costa County, and has also covered the general assignment beat. In addition to transportation, Michael covers a variety of Bay Area news, including breaking news events. He’s been tear-gassed covering demonstrations in Oakland and exposed to nude protesters in the Castro District. Michael is also a regular contributor to the City Insider column and blog.